January 3, 2013
After five years of working from different locations in and around town and storing inventory and supplies in various basements and garages of volunteers, Rebuilding Together Muscatine County (RTMC) has received a 10-year lease for the Annex. Not familiar with the name? It’s the former Pickett School on the campus of Crossroads on Houser Street.
Remember the blue-tarped roof you used to see when traveling Houser? Well, the blue tarp is gone, and now RTMC has office space, a meeting room, storage, and even space for a workshop, all under one roof. We have even been given a pole barn on the Crossroads’ campus for inventory overflow.
Rebuilding Together, the national organization, believes that everyone deserves to live in a safe and healthy home. Nearly 200 affiliates across our great nation, including Rebuilding Together Muscatine County, provide critical repairs, accessibility modifications and energy-efficient upgrades to low-income homes and community centers at no cost to service recipients. Some larger affiliates do this year-round, but all affiliates participate in one day each year called Rebuilding Together Day. RTMC’s workday is the last Saturday in April, and this year that is Saturday, April 27th. RTMC helps Muscatine County residents who need repairs made to their homes, but who do not have the necessary funds to make those repairs and nowhere else to turn. If they qualify for assistance, RTMC makes their homes safe and warm at no expense to them, home by home, block by block.
RTMC has reached out to community businesses to ask for help with funding to add a roof and paint the exterior of the Annex as soon as weather permits. HNI answered that call by awarding RTMC a sizeable grant, with the stipulation that the funds be matched with additional contributions or in-kind donations. You can help RTMC secure the grant from HNI by mailing your donation to our new address: Rebuilding Together Muscatine County, 1424B Houser Street, Muscatine, IA 52761. RTMC has no paid staff, and all funds will either be used to make our headquarters attractive and safe or for supplies needed for Rebuilding Together Day in April.
If you are able, please help us by sending a donation to RTMC at the address listed above. And, remember to mark your calendar for Saturday, April 27, for Rebuilding Together Day. Help those in our community who most need our help: the low-income senior, homeowners needing accessibility modifications, veterans, and families struggling to provide for the basic necessities. Join this worthwhile cause of neighbors helping neighbors. You’ll get a T-shirt, a free lunch, the knowledge that you have helped make your community a better place to live, and just a warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you have done the right thing. As we all know, community begins at home.